Palin, holding court in the lobby of the Biltmore hotel before a trip back to Alaska, also told other reporters:

“2012 sounds like years away. 2012 . . . what will we be doing there, guys. Enrolling Trig in kindergarten and watching Willow get ready to go off to college. There are a lot of good things that will happen in 2012.”

“I don’t know politically where in the world I’ll be then.”

A dynamic speaker with a perky personality, she lit a fire of excitement under conservative Republicans who were lukewarm to her running mate, John McCain.

The mother of five colorfully named kids, including Willow and baby Trig, drew enormous crowds among the GOP faithful.

But she also stumbled in several interviews, and was embarrassed by disclosures that the GOP spent $150,000 on wardrobes for her and her family just before the economic meltdown.

And Tina Fey of “Saturday Night Live” did a withering caricature of her.

Even now, the clothing fiasco is a source of friction between Palin and some of McCain’s campaign aides, who derisively dubbed the hockey mom as a diva and a rogue.

For her part, Palin today insisted those reports were overblown.

“It is absolutely false that there’s any tension certainly from my part or my family’s part . . . They know there is absolutely no diva in me. In fact, we laughed about that criticism,” she said.

“Come and travel with me to Alaska and see this diva lifestyle that I supposedly live, because it’s false. But again, [I’m] not going to participate in any of the negativity.”